Ambitions
by Satellites on Parade
Summary: 30 or so drabbles for Super 8 to coincide with the Day By Drabble challenge at Livejournal. Lots of Joe/Alice, but there will be gen stuff, too, and maybe even other pairings! Ooh. LATEST: A preview from chapter 10 of Between Unsure & A Hundred.
1. Blue Skies

**Hello, readers! I'm participating in the Day by Drabble challenge over at Livejournal and my chosen fandom for the month-long challenge is Super 8, which means you'll probably be seeing a lot of little drabbles from me as the month goes on. I figured I'd throw them all into one story here to reduce clutter and to let you all in on the fun. :) **

**Prompt Number One: **_**I was blue, just as blue as I could be / Ev'ry day was a cloudy day for me / Then good luck came a-knocking at my door / Skies were gray but they're not gray anymore**_** ("Blue Skies" by Irving Berlin)**

**DISCLAIMER: ****I claim no ownership to the characters utilized in this fanwork. This is an exercise in writing and I gain no profit from it.**

–

Cheerfulness would hardly be the appropriate emotion to follow a full-scale alien attack that tore a town to shreds and caused the deaths of about twenty-five percent of its population, but then again, inappropriate reactions had begun to develop an unusual affinity for Joe Lamb in recent days.

As per usual, he had Alice Dainard to thank.

"Jesus. It's pathetic," Charles would say, shaking his head as he eyed Joe practically bouncing down Main Street to meet him and the other boys for ice cream.

"What is?" Cary says after this particular statement of disgust, leaning forward over the table to get a look outside the window. This time, Joe is not alone, nor is he walking. He is pedaling his bicycle toward the ice cream parlor, with Alice astride behind him. Charles pulls a face resembling that which one makes after swallowing a raw egg.

"What do you think, dumbass? _That_." He gesticulates out the window at the approaching pair. Cary nods thoughtfully, plopping back down into his booster seat. Preston fidgets anxiously.

"I think it's kind of… endearing," he offers.

"No one asked you, egghead," Charles snaps, flicking the melted remnants of a spoonful of spumoni at him. Preston flinches and shies away.

Martin's mouth thins as he reaches a hand down to warily ghost his fingers over his splinted leg, as though making sure it was still there. He glances at Charles with pity, but says nothing.

The front door – painted with new white letters reading, _Today's special: 1 scoop sundae, 75¢!_ – opens and the bell rings and it's Joe, and it's Alice, and Charles grimaces, bracing himself for an onslaught of cooties and mushiness and all other things that normally make him nauseous.

"Hi, guys!" Joe greets them, and there it is again: _cheerfulness_, bright blue skies and sunshine bursting forth from the grin on his face. Cary's eyebrows go up. Alice isn't smiling; she's smirking. And they're holding hands.

"Oh, _God_, save me," Charles mutters. Cary stifles a snicker behind one hand, but Joe notices it. Alice balks and starts to take a step back, folding her lips in with displeasure and embarrassment, but Joe's hand snatches back and grabs hers, keeping her rooted. He ignores the awkwardness radiating at him from his friends and sits down beside Cary and Alice joins him; Charles, Preston, and Martin stare at them from the other side.

"So," Preston says, eyes protuberant as always, "Mr. Hondale says that he'll give us free ice cream today if he can see a copy of Charles' movie."

"When hell freezes over!" Charles exclaims.

"With ice cream?" Cary offers, and there is a beat, and then they all burst into laughter.

Under the table, Joe finds Alice's hand and puts his on top of it. She raises her head to look at him, and he catches her eye the way he would catch butterflies in a wide, billowing net when he was a kid; and suddenly not even the sky outside is bluer than the ones inside her irises. She blinks, briefly shutting off the daylight, and he sighs briefly before feeling a balled-up napkin hit him in the side of the head.

"Doofus," Charles exclaims in his typical disgruntled voice. The pubescent cracks in it have begun to reach their crescendo. "I was telling you about a new scene I'm writing for the sequel. Now, it turns out that Detective Hathaway has to find a way to recreate the cure, because…"

Joe tries to pay attention. He really does. He tries so hard he could get straight A's for it. But Alice, a welcome distraction, keeps catching his focus, and she winks at him while Charles babbles on, and Cary is discussing fireworks, and Preston looks half-panicked, and Martin just looks vaguely disinterested with Charles' tangent, and everything is right and it is summer.


	2. Comparisons

**This isn't actually a drabble written for the challenge, ahaha. It was inspired by The Weepies' super sweet little tune called "Take It From Me," specifically this line: **_**What can I compare you to / when everything looks like you? / I get a bit confused with every spring / Flowers that bloom in your eyes, hummingbirds side by side / My heart won't stay entirely in this rib caging.**_

**OH, THE FLUFF, THE CHEESY, NAUSEATING FLUFF. C: I loves it.**

**DISCLAIMER: ****I claim no ownership to the characters used in this fanwork. This is a writing exercise and I gain no profit from it.**

–

One of the most challenging questions that Joe Lamb was ever asked was not something on a test or in a job interview or from a list of riddles and puzzles and brain teasers. It was a question that was asked to him by a particularly impatient Charles while he was filming his first documentary, a little piece exploring how people defined love and loved ones. He didn't think he would have been any less lost if there hadn't been a camera pointed at him.

"Okay. Joe Lamb from Lillian, Ohio." In the background, Cary hissed, "_Every stupid person you interview is from Lillian, fatass!_"

Joe gave a nod of recognition to the camera, raising a hand and a stiff smile in greeting. Charles adjusted his bulky headphones.

"How old are you, Joe?" Charles asked crisply. Joe shifted on the rock Charles had plopped him down on.

"Um," he mumbled, "Thirteen."

"Jesus, speak up!" Charles snapped.

"Thirteen!" Joe repeated tersely, glowering at Charles, who ignored him.

"Do you have a crush on anybody, Joe?"

Joe's cheeks went horribly, uncomfortably red, making him resemble a sunburned strawberry.

"U-Uh," he stuttered as loudly as he could. "Yes."

"Could you describe him or her to us in three words or less, please?" Cary snickered at the "him."

Joe opened his mouth as though to begin speaking, but then frowned before he could close it when he realized that he didn't have a ready answer for that question. _Alice. How would he describe Alice?_

"She's…" he began, then paused again, stumped. "I don't…" He smiled, and let out a little laugh. "Really know."

"Oh, for Christ's sake," Charles grumbled under his breath, shaking his head. "Okay, um… how about this. Compare her to something. Use one of those, um, what did Preston say they were… synonyms? Cinnamons? Simians?"

"Similes," Martin whispered helpfully.

"Yeah, those!" Charles sounded immensely relieved.

Joe thought about that one even harder than he'd thought about the first one, lowering his eyes to the sandy pathway of the park that Charles had dragged him and all the equipment to. The maple trees swayed overhead.

"Hurry _up_," Cary growled viciously, startling Joe out of his introspection.

"Well," Joe said, "that's the thing. I mean, what can I compare her to when she's like everything? Or maybe everything's like her." He smiled, satisfied at his answer. Cary made a gesture resembling a person forcing himself to regurgitate. Charles dropped his hands to his sides and tossed his head back, rolling his eyes so hugely that Joe swore they looked like orbiting planets.

"Aw, _jeez_," he muttered indiscreetly.


	3. Hundreds

**This is a **_**veeerrryyy**_** short preview for a scene that'll be appearing late, late in Between Unsure & A Hundred. Like, chapter ten late. But I figured you'd all like to take a gander. :)**

–

It very nearly offended her to see that he had the audacity to hold remorse in his eyes, and even more that he lowered his gaze to the ground. She bristled, hands balling into fists that yearned to collide with his face.

"_Look_ at me," she hissed, her voice tight. He winced back, fingers twitching silently at his sides, and slowly shook his head.

"I…" he started to whisper, and for a brief moment, his eyes were back in hers, and their stares were locked, but he broke away again, stepping backwards. "I can't. I have to go. This was a bad idea. I'm sorry. I won't come back again."

He turned and began to walk away from her, head bowed against the snow. Before she knew what she was doing, before she even knew that she was moving, she leapt forward and grabbed his hand. He stopped. Their arms hung connected between them, the only thing left to provide passage between them. Alice couldn't help but be reminded of a rickety bridge she'd once walked in the forest that had threatened to collapse at any moment.

"Alice," he said softly, regretfully. "I'm sorry. I don't have a choice anymore."

"You do have a choice," she murmured, and then, just like that, the words burst forth without pause. "Joe… I never asked you to leave. I never asked you to give up or walk away. But I'm asking you now." Her fingers tightened on his. "Please. For me. Just… don't go. Don't leave me."

Her head dropped, and tears were beginning to drop into the snowdrift around her ankles.

"I need…" She swallowed for strength. "I need to know this isn't the last time I'm going to see you."

He had been pulling against her arm a moment ago, but now he was retreating to her, head turning slowly with realization.

He was silent.

"I just…" She inhaled, wondering if she could do this without falling to her knees. "I just… love you so much."

He was as frozen as the landscape around him as he stared at her, not blinking, his mouth infinitesimally open with shock. Her cheeks flushed, and she forced herself to let go of his hand; it dropped uselessly to his side, swinging slightly. He made no effort to still it. She bowed her head, tightening her lips for courage, and refused to look at him anymore. She didn't think she could take it. If their eyes met again, she would crumble and blow away, scattering like his mother's ashes had over the treetops so many years ago.

"Alice…" he whispered, barely audible. She shook her head sharply.

"I should've known," she panted, and the tears were coming freely now, and she made no effort to conceal them from him. At last, she lifted her head up, forcing him to look her in the eye, wanting to call him a coward. Something that could be called a laugh, bitter and hollow, coughed its way up her throat. "You always did forget your lines."


	4. Impulses

**I keep working on these drabbles between bits of Between Unsure & A Hundred, and they sure are fun, and they sure do keep me going! This one was super quick. I have so many different fanons for what their first kiss was like, haha. **

**AND YOU GUYS, I'm debating writing a tiny little Cary/Alice thing. OBVS SHE'D GO BACK TO JOE IN THE END NO MATTER WHAT, BUT. I kind of felt like Cary cared about her a **_**lot**_** in the movie. I mean, he even went with Joe to go save her, and when they all thought she was dead after the train crash, he was the only one who looked like he was crying. I'M JUST SAYING. **

**Prompt: "If a June night could talk, it would boast that it had invented romance." — Bern Williams**

–

Joe Lamb does not kiss Alice Dainard until he is fifteen.

She is tall and he is taller and it is June; her face is twilit and pallid and she reminds him so uncannily of springtime and white roses, and he can't breathe.

He recalls himself being held in the grip of a towering monstrosity from another world and expecting that it would be the last time he would see daylight, if daylight could be considered Alice Dainard's face in a dark cave. He remembers that Dainard is an Old English name that means "bold dane," and he must admit that she is bolder (and more Danish) than he could ever hope to be. "Lamb" is Middle English and describes him perfectly, as it signifies that all whose first names are attached to it are a "meek, unoffensive person."

When he thinks of The Alien, his heart skips maybe one beat from apprehension. When he thinks of Alice Dainard, his heart stops altogether.

On this particular June night in 1981, she is eying him with conviction, her hair braided at her back, trailing down over white gossamer shirt, and he is aware of sweat gathering in his clavicle, and he gulps.

"What're you staring at, Lamb?" she demands.

He admits he could have been a bit more graceful about it, but there really isn't any turning back once he feels himself lurch toward her as he loses his nerve and fall onto her shoulders and crash his lips into hers.

He imagines her bony knuckles colliding with his left eye and is certain that he would deserve it. But then her hands are on the back of his neck, and his are in her hair, and it is _bliss_, like falling backwards through cascades of feathers and mist.

He wants to say that he loves her, but truthfully, he will not know _that_ for certain until he is sixteen. For now, the crickets are trilling and the dusk is gathering in the ends of her hair and he can come to terms with the fact that he _likes_ Alice Dainard; he likes her an awful lot, more than he has ever _liked_ anyone or anything, more than he likes swimming, more than he likes running, more than he likes summer, more than he likes catching moths, more than he likes mint chocolate chip ice cream, more than he likes pretending that she is not the first thing he pictures when he wakes up in the morning.

It becomes more and more evident to him as her tongue ghosts over his lips that it is June, and for all he knows, it will forever be June for as long as she holds him like this – like he is the last real thing in the world.


	5. Bubbles

**Prompt: Photo of boy and girl kissing underwater. **

**Uggghhhh, this is awful; it's taking so much effort for me to post it. WAS COCKBLOCK A PHRASE IN THE 70s? I HOPE SO. Or, well, 80s, I guess, since this takes place when they're older. :I**

–

Alice descended upon him without warning in the lake, her blonde hair billowing white and lavish as the water swelled beneath it. Joe squinted his eyes to see through the blue cloudiness and there she was, pushing her arms forward and out with fluidity, her shoulders pale beneath the earthy green of her bikini.

Dimly, he could hear splashes and shouting from above the surface as Charles did a cannonball, sending explosions of white bubbles through the water. Preston dog-paddled past, his pasty legs flailing.

Alice didn't pause when she reached him, taking his hands in hers and pressing her lips against his, sending a bubble into his mouth and down his throat. Upon impact, her hair came cascading down with the glimmering grace that only water can provide, and it surrounded Joe's head, moving against the back of his neck. He hadn't closed his eyes, but she had, and he tried in vain to count the tiny bubbles gathering in her eyelashes before sinking down with her in his arms.

The water made her lips cold and tender, and her skin whiter and more eerie-looking than any ghost. He put his hands on the small of her back, not caring if they'd have to come back up for air, because he could honestly drown like this and never regret it.

In the corner of his consciousness, he noticed a wide, dark shadow suddenly appear over his and Alice's heads, and it wasn't until its shape hit the water that he realized what it was. He pulled away from Alice abruptly with a cry, but all that came out was a stream of bubbles, and she looked at him in confusion before the two of them felt the impact of Charles on top of them.

As the three came spluttering to the surface, they could hear Cary cackling from a few feet away, clutching his stomach as he doubled over in the water, kicking his legs to stay afloat. Joe turned furiously to Charles, who was laughing just as hard as Cary, pointing a finger at the him and Alice. He swiveled his gaze to Alice, whose hair had dropped completely in front of her face, obscuring her entire bust. She raised two hands up behind it and pushed it aside in two halves, looking altogether similar to an extremely disgruntled mermaid.

"Cockblocked!" Cary was chanting. "Cockblocked, cockblocked, cockblocked!"


	6. Various

**I swear to God I'm working on the fifth chapter of Between Unsure & A Hundred! I promise! I've even sent it off to Jonuda and theheffalump to be beta'd! It's coming! I just needed this to take a break and stretch my muscles! Please excuse all the exclamation marks but I am very insistent! Please believe me! I'm working on it; I swear!**

**Okay, exclamation marks aside, the only problem I'm having with chapter five is… getting Joe to decide to go back. I don't want it to be abrupt, you know? Good thing he's got a tough-as-nails boss from Brooklyn!**

**This is part of the iPod challenge, which I snatched from RhiannaNekozawa – whose stories you should read, by the way; they're wonderful! The object of the exercise is to put your MP3 player or iTunes on shuffle and write a drabble for each song, and you can only keep writing for the length of the song. I didn't do too many, but once I started, I couldn't stop! You guys wouldn't believe all the half-done **_**Super 8**_** things I have lying around. I'm currently working on a oneshot called "Like Pretty Girls Need Cowboys," a short bit for "Ambitions" for the prompt "freedom," an "Ambitions" piece for the prompt "sweat" (warning: it'll be saucy!), and a billion other things. I'm not kidding. I have a problem.**

**All babbling aside, enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: ****I do not claim ownership to the characters, canonical occurrences, or songs used in this work of fanfiction. All things affiliated with **_**Super 8**_** belong to J.J. Abrams and Bad Robot. All songs are listed with their artists. The situations used in this work of fanfiction were created by me to be provided by the characters aforementioned. I gain no profit from this.**

* * *

><p><em>21 Guns – American Idiot Cast.<em>

Joe had always been willing to fight for the people of Lillian, for his friends and for Alice and for his father. What he did not realize, however, until he was running through the underground caverns forged by that which needed to be fought, was that he had never – to his everlasting shame – been willing to die for any of them.

Not even for Alice.

The streets of Lillian were freckled with seas of broken glass, layer upon layer of scattered greens and oranges and browns and translucents. Sometimes when he'd be walking, a piece would slice up through the sole of his shoe and into the arch of his foot, and he'd bleed a little, but suddenly blood was a meaningless sort of thing to him, just as it was to everyone else – the sidewalks and houses were all stained by the imprint of the bloodshed; a little of Sheriff Prewett's, a little of Breen's, a little of the lady with the curlers', a little of the telephone line repairman's. It never entirely washed away, just as Joe never entirely was ready to die.

* * *

><p><em>Space Age Love Song – A Flock of Seagulls.<em>

Preston was never good at falling in love.

Robyn helped him out a little bit.

She was short, a dainty sort of girl, with thick auburn hair that never seemed to please her and round tortoiseshell glasses and lots of freckles that she hated. She loved knee-high socks and jumpers and, at prom, the iris corsage he bought for her. Her dress had been short and rust-colored to match her hair, and her shoes had been olive to match her eyes. They only danced to one song, but they danced hard and they danced with smiles on their faces.

Preston had never seen a more wonderful smile. For a few moments, she had taught him something he'd never read in any of his AP classes: that falling in love was, in some ways, the easiest thing in the world.

* * *

><p><em>Alligator Sky – Owl City.<em>

It wasn't until his son's high school graduation that Jackson Lamb realized he had missed out on things. It was at that same time, however, that he decided he would never miss out on things again.

Joe had rocketed away to some far, fantastic galaxy in his absence, and he had begun to glow and burn and pulsate like a celestial body brighter than the sun.

Jackson had almost lost Joe up there in space, but at the last moment, he had managed to grip one of his untied-shoes, and after the mortar-boards had been thrown and the summer had been begun, he embraced his son like he'd never embraced him and said, "I got you now, son. I got you."

* * *

><p><em>You Can Be the One – Late Night Alumni<em>.

Nobody wants to be alone.

Alice Dainard is not nobody.

She walks the streets when the lights have gone out with her hands in her pockets. She passes the local club with its flashing neon lights and exhausting shouting and allows herself to glance inside with a hint of longing, even though all the couples inside will likely not know each other for any other hour besides this; they will make love to each other but not lose themselves and the next morning they will walk in two different directions that never converge again.

She wonders who is more lonely.

She has never stopped implying to a certain brown-haired boy that he has had several chances to be the _one_ – _**the **__one_** – **and he has never, she realizes when she walks by his house and sees him silhouetted in his bedroom window, hunched over a model, done anything but miss the point entirely.

* * *

><p><em>All Good Things – The Weepies.<em>

Joe Lamb is too forgiving. This is not a difficult thing to figure out.

Alice Lamb leaves bruises and he pushes them with his first and middle fingers in the middle of the night to remind himself that they're there, little blue and violet markers she leaves on him. She has done a hundred things to prove to him, or to try to prove to him, that she is not right for him and that he would be much more pleased without her beside him, but of all the things he is "too," "stubborn" is another.

All good things, all good things. All good things come to an end.

But Alice is not a good thing. She is a raw thing, a beautiful thing.

* * *

><p><em>I'm in Love With a Girl – Gavin DeGraw.<em>

"Dude, I am so fucking in love with her."

"You mentioned that, fatty. You think we care why, exactly?"

"Because she's a total babe, dude! She's smart and she's hardcore and she's got _melons_, man, and even when I'm being a jerk and trying to pick a fight and everything, all she does is tell me she thinks I'm great, and that I need to just calm down and shut up and kiss her, and then the other night at Daniel's bar mitzvah she _grabbed me by the tie_ and planted a big one on me, and—"

"Shut _up_, Charles; for Christ's sakes! Who is this chick you're dating anyway? Are we ever going to meet her or is she busy hanging out in whatever imaginary land you made her up in?"

"Piss off, Cary."

"I'm being serious. What's her name?"

"Donna. She's from Michigan."

"Oh, my God! Does she have one of those sing-song voices?"

"No, you idiot; that's Minnesota! The only voice she's got is the one of some sort of goddess or something!"

"God. I'm going to barf."

* * *

><p><em>Cemeteries of London – Coldplay<em>.

Charles had a movie in which the dead returned not as mindless ghouls and zombies, but as ethereal white spirits who sashayed through the frost-laden paths and gave the living _meaningful looks_. That was how his mother got her exercise, he was certain – for months he would wander through the graveyard and wonder if he'd see her there, the ghostly remnant of her locket glistening in the moonlight. He'd dream these things too, sometimes, but he never remembered what she said.

She would give him _meaningful looks_, and that would be all he'd ever need.

* * *

><p><em>The Cave – Mumford &amp; Sons<em>.

Somewhere between late summer bonfires and winter cups of cocoa, Joe grows up.

It's only his appearance that really changes, though – he has always _looked_ a bit more grown-up than he ought to be, like he has seen things that are not meant to be seen until one his halfway through life and possibly fighting in a war. He gets taller, he develops a vengeful five o'clock shadow, his hair gets thicker and longer, he starts to yell louder, and he starts to miss his mother just a little bit less.

Joe has been growing for years. It is not until he starts to look at the world from every angle that he grows _up_. He and his friends grow in different directions – Cary grows _out_, Preston grows _through_, Charles grows _in_, Alice grows _upside down_, Martin grows _in_to the footprints he made when he broke his leg.

Alice has a pale blue bikini and round lime green sunglasses. When she reclines in a chair beside the public pool, her legs look creamy and soft, and Joe can never tell if her eyes are open are closed; only that her lips are red, and that she burns too easily.

Joe grows up, and Joe changes.

* * *

><p><em>Get Up, Get Up, Get Up – Barcelona.<em>

It took every fiber of effort in Joe's tiny fourteen-year-old body to keep his voice at a whisper when he tried to awaken Alice in The Alien's underground lair (Martin was the one who wanted to call it a "lair"). He wanted to scream to her, to shout word upon word: "Get up, Alice. Get up, get up, get up, get up, get up, get up. Please. Get up, get up."

The thought occurred to him after a moment that he might not make it home – that he would never see his father, or his dog, or his mother's grave again.

He wondered, then, if Alice was worth it. And suddenly he wanted to cry, because he realized something immensely horrifying and immensely sad: she was.

"Get up, Alice. Get up, get up, get up, get up."

* * *

><p><em>The Freshman – Jay Brannan<em>.

Cary's first girlfriend, Allison, killed herself.

_Guilt-stricken, sobbing with his head on the floor_.

"You're the only thing that kept me going, Cary, for such a long time. But I guess it wasn't enough in the end."

_We were merely freshmen._

"Please don't blame yourself."

Joe had always had to be there for so many people at so many different intervals for so many reasons. But it is hardest to be there for Cary, because Cary is crying and for the first time in his life, Joe doesn't know how a problem can ever be fixed.

* * *

><p><strong>I'm sorry for all the angst and for all the OCs, ugh. FORGIVE ME.<strong>


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